master's eye upon an encumbered estate!

Jefferson settled to his work again in Philadelphia, and watched for a good opportunity to resign. Through the good offices of the President, a truce was arranged between the two hostile secretaries, who tried their best to cooperate in peace, not without success. Hamilton, in particular, was scrupulously careful to avoid the error of interfering, or seeming to interfere, in his colleague's department. At heart each felt the sincerity and patriotic intentions of the other, and Jefferson had even an exaggerated idea of Hamilton's ability. The elections, too, of 1792, had strengthened the republicans in Congress, who gained a decisive triumph in the first month of the session by defeating (thirty-five to eleven) a proposition to allow members of the Cabinet to attend the House of Representatives and explain "their measures to the House. This made it easier for Jefferson to continue. And, besides, the French Revolution, of late, had turned in arms upon the kings banded against it, and seemed to be able, contrary to all expectation, to hold its own. As yet, nearly all America was in enthusiastic sympathy with France. When the news arrived of a movement favorable to the French, the "monocrats," as Jefferson styled the Othercrats, made wry faces; but the republicans set the bells ringing, illuminated their houses, and wore a tricolored cockade in their hats.

The time was at hand when the youngest of the nations would need in its government the best talent it could command, and, above all, in the department which directed its intercourse with foreign nations. The French king had been dethroned, and was about to be brought to trial, all the world looking on with an interest difficult now to conceive. It stirred Jefferson's indignation sometimes to observe that mankind were more attentive to the sufferings of the king and queen than to the welfare of the people of France. "Such are the fruits," he once wrote,

"of that form of government which heaps importance upon idiots, and which the tories of the present day are trying to preach into our favor." It pleased many of the republicans, however, to learn that Thomas Paine, one of themselves, was exerting himself ably to save the king's life. Paine said in the convention, that "Louis Capet," if he had been slightly favored by fortune, - if he had been born in a private station, in "an amiable and respectable neighborhood," - would have been, in all probability, a virtuous citizen; but, cursed from the dawn of his reason with ceaseless adulation, and reared in "brutal luxury," he was a victim of monarchy, as well as the agent of its ill-working. England, he reminded the convention, had cut off the head of a very bad Charles Stuart, only to be cursed, a few years after, with a worse; but when, forty years later, England had banished the Stuarts, there was an end of their doing harm in the world.

What a happy stroke was this in a French Assembly! He followed it up by offering to accompany the fallen king to the only ally France then had, the United States, where the people regarded him as their friend. "His execution, I assure you," said this master of effective composition, "will diffuse among them a general grief. I propose to you to conduct Louis to the United States. After a residence of two years, Mr. Capet will find himself a citizen of America. Miscrable in this country, to which his absence will be a benefit, he will be furnished the means of becoming happy in another."

There was a passage in this speech to which the bloody scenes about to occur in Paris give a singular significance. Part of the long period of reaction towards barbaric (i. c. ancient) ideas and institutions, which began with the French guillotine, and from which we are only now emerging, might have been spared mankind if Thomas Paine could have spoken French as well as he wrote English, and brought this warning home to the convention

with the oratorical power of a Mirabeau. "Monarchical governments," he said, "have trained the human race, and inured it to the sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the same punishment which has so long shocked the sight and tormented the patience of the people, that now, in their turn, they practise in revenge upon their oppressors. But it becomes us to be strictly on our guard against the abomination and perversity of monarchical examples. As France has been the first to abolish royalty, let her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death." In these words spoke the humane spirit in which the French Revolution originated.

The execution of the king, January 21, 1793, saddened every well-constituted mind in Europe and America. It lessened the sympathy of a vast number of persons with the Revolution; and all but the most extreme republicans felt in some degree the infinite impolicy of the act. From that time the good-will of mankind for unhappy France would have more sensibly diminished, but that the world in arms seemed gathering for her destruction.

It was a mad time. The manager of a Philadelphia theatre thought it opportune to revive the tragedy of Cato. Before the play began, the company of actors sang upon the stage La Marseillaise, when the whole the atre rose, and joined in the chorus. At the end of each act this performance was repeated. Every evening, afterwards, as soon as the musicians entered the orchestra, a cry arose for La Marseillaise, and no other music would be listened to. Usually, some portion of the audience caught the fury of the piece and thundered out the familiar refrain. But as the guillotine continued its ravages, the enthusiasm decreased; and, instead of the universal and deafening demand for the French hymn, there would be, at length, only a score or two of voices from the gallery, all the rest of the house sitting in grim silence. Finally, on a night long remembered VOL. XXXI.—NO. 185. 18

in the theatre, one defiant soul ventured to give the usual sign of disapproval. Instantly the whole house burst into one overwhelming hiss; and never was the terrible piece played again. Soon the new song of Hail Columbia took its place in popular regard, and was, for some years, played at every theatre just before the rising of the curtain.

The change of government in France produced political complications with which the Cabinet of General Washington had to deal at once and practically. Questions of law and of finance, as well as of opinion and sentiment, had to be, not only discussed, but rightly decided under penalty of being drawn into the maelstrom of the war. Our two "cocks," exasperated by previous encounters, were now pitted against each other every day; but they were under bonds to keep the peace, and each was further restrained by the perils of the situation. Hamilton, by himself, might have involved the country in an entangling alliance with the powers hostile to the Revolution. Jefferson alone might have found it difficult to avoid a too helpful sympathy with beleaguered, bewildered France. The result of their antagonism was an honorable neutrality, useful to France, not injurious to the allies, and exceedingly profitable to the United States.

How irreconcilable they were in their feelings respecting the great events of 1793! “Sir,” said Hamilton, in August, to Edmund Randolph, “if all the people in America were now assembled, and were to call on me to say whether I am a friend to the French Revolution, I would declare that I have it in abhorrence." Jefferson, on the contrary, wrote thus to his old friend Short, just before the execution of the king: "My own affections have been deeply wounded by some of the martyrs to this cause; but rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated! Were there but an Adam and an Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is."

Gouverneur Morris was then American Minister in France, a very able gentleman and honorably frank in the avowal of his opinions. Mark this striking sentence, written by him as far back as 1790: "The French Assembly have taken genius instead of reason for their guide, adopted experiment instead of experience, and wander in the dark because they prefer lightning to light." He meant Mirabeau. But, a few weeks after, writing to General Washington, he gave such a list of the ancient abuses which the Revolution had abolished as amount to a compensation to France for all the Revolutionary miseries she has suffered from Mirabeau to Thiers. As the Revolution advanced, though Jefferson, in official instructions, had cautioned him to avoid the utterance of opinions hostile to the Revolution, he gave such offence to the Revolutionary leaders that Lafayette complained of it to the President. But, in 1792, he redeemed himself nobly. Upon the dethronement of the king, when all the diplomatic corps left Paris, the American Minister alone, rightly interpreting his mission, remained. "The position," as he truly wrote to Mr. Jefferson, "is not without danger; but I presume that when the President did me the honor of naming me to this embassy, it was not for my personal pleasure or safety, but to promote the interests of my country." And he remained at his post all through the period of the terror, though the Ministry gave him pretexts enough for abandoning it, and though even the sanctuary of his abode was violated by a committee in search of arms. The fury of the people, he wrote to Mr. Jefferson, was such as to render them, capable of all excesses without being accountable for them. The calm courage and utter frankness of this splendid old tory conciliates the modern reader. The French Ministry, however, abhorred him to such a point that they made it a matter of formal complaint to Mr. Jefferson, that this representative of a republic, in a despatch addressed

to the government of a republic (a few days old), had used the familiar expression, "Les ordres de MA COUR.”

But the Cabinet question was this: The king being dethroned, who was authorized to give a valid receipt for the money which the United States was paying to France from time to time? Upon this point, the orders of Gouverneur Morris's court were necessary; and the real secret of the animosity of the French ministers was, that he would not and could not pay over to them the sums due nominally to the king. The ministers remonstrated in their own way, and sent complaints across the sea. Morris, at his own table and in the hearing of his servants, indulged himself in calling them a set of damned rascals, and in predicting (he was curiously fond of prophesying) that the king would have his own again. Upon the pecuniary question, the opinions of the Cabinet were divided.

Jefferson's opinion: Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as often as they please. But the National Assembly of France, to which all power had fallen by necessity upon the removal of the king, had not been elected by the people of France as an executive body. For the moment, therefore, the French government was, at best, incomplete. But a National Convention had been elected in full view of the crisis, and for the express purpose of meeting its requirements. That Convention would be, when organized, a legitimate government, qualified to give a valid receipt to the United States.

Hamilton's opinion: He doubted whether the Convention would be a legitimate body. In case the monarchy should be re-established, the king might disallow payments made to it. He was for stopping payment altogether until there was something more stable and regular established in France.

On this occasion, General Knox, Secretary of War, ventured to express an opinion. "For once," says Jefferson,

"Knox dared to differ from Hamilton, and to express very submissively an opinion that a convention named by the whole body of the nation would be competent to do anything." The result was, that the Secretary of State was requested to write to Gouverneur Morris, directing him to suspend payments until further orders. A few days after arrived the despatches in which the French Ministry complained of the too candid Morris and of his insolent contempt of a sister republic in speaking of "ma cour." Upon this delicate subject the President conversed with the Secretary of State in a manner which exhibits the situation.

THE PRESIDENT. The extracts from Ternant (French plenipotentiary in Philadelphia) I consider very serious, in short, as decisive. I see that Gouverneur Morris can be no longer continued there consistently with the public good. The moment is critical in our favor (that is, for getting free-trade with the French West Indies and freer trade with France) and ought not to be lost. Yet I am extremely at a loss what arrangement to make.

JEFFERSON. Might not Gouverneur Morris and Pinckney (American Minister in England) change places?

THE PRESIDENT. That would be a sort of remedy, but not a radical one. If the French Ministry conceive Gouverneur Morris to be hostile to them, if they were jealous merely on his proposing to visit London, they will never be satisfied with us at placing him in London permanently. You have unfixed the day on which you intended to resign; yet you appear fixed in doing it at no great distance of time. In that case, I cannot but wish that you would go to Paris. The moment is important. You possess the confidence of both sides, and might do great good. I wish you could do it, were it only to stay there a year or two.

JEFFERSON. My mind is so bent on retirement that I cannot think of

launching forth again on a new business. I can never again cross the Atlantic. As to the opportunity of doing good, this is likely to be the scene of action, as Genet is bringing powers to do the business here. I cannot think of going abroad.

THE PRESIDENT. You have pressed me to continue in the public service, and refuse to do the same yourself.

JEFFERSON. The case is different. You unite the confidence of all America, and you are the only person who does so. Your services, therefore, are of the last importance. But, for myself, my going out would not be noted or known. A thousand others can supply my place to equal advantage, and, therefore, I feel myself free.

THE PRESIDENT. Consider maturely, then, what arrangement shall be made.

Here the conversation ended. Mr. Jefferson did not remind the President of the vast difference in their pecuniary condition. He did not remark that General Washington was so rich a man that not even the ravages of Virginia overseers could quite ruin him, but that Thomas Jefferson could only continue to serve the public at the imminent risk of financial destruction.

Meanwhile, Genet was coming, - the first minister sent by the Republic of France to the Republic of the United States. The republicans of the United States awaited his arrival with inexpressible ardor, and were prepared to give him one of those "receptions for which the country has since become noted, receptions which are so amusing and agreeable to all but the victim. Colonel Hamilton was by no means elated at the prospect of his coming. At a Cabinet meeting a short time before the landing of the expected minister, he had dropped this remark: "When Mr. Genet arrives, whether we shall receive him or not will then be a question for discussion."

James Parton.

WE

JE had been talking about the masters who had achieved but a single masterpiece,— the artists and poets who but once in their lives had known the divine afflatus, and touched the high level of the best. Our host had been showing us a charming little cabinet picture by a painter whose name we had never heard, and who, after this one spasmodic bid for fame, had apparently relapsed into fatal mediocrity. There was some discussion as to the frequency of this phenomenon; during which, I observed, H-sat silent, finishing his cigar with a meditative air, and looking at the picture, which was being handed round the table. "I don't know how common a case it is," he said at last, “but I've seen it. I've known a poor fellow who painted his one masterpiece, and" he added with a smile" he didn't even paint that. He made his bid for fame, and missed it." We all knew H— for a clever man who had seen much of men and manners, and had a great stock of reminiscences. Some one immediately questioned him further, and, while I was engrossed with the raptures of my neighbor over the little picture, he was induced to tell his tale. If I were to doubt whether it would bear repeating, I should only have to remember how that charming woman, our hostess, who had left the table, ventured back in rustling rose-color, to pronounce our lingering a want of gallantry, and, finding us a listening circle, had sunk into her chair in spite of our cigars, and heard the story out so graciously, that when the catastrophe was reached she glanced across at me, and showed me a tender tear in each of her beautiful eyes.

It relates to my youth, and to Italy two fine things! (H- began.) I had arrived late in the evening at Florence, and while I finished my bot

tle of wine at supper, had fancied that, tired traveller though I was, I might pay the city a finer compliment than by going vulgarly to bed. A narrow passage wandered darkly away out of the little square before my hotel, and looked as if it bored into the heart of Florence. I followed it, and at the end of ten minutes emerged upon a great piazza, filled only with the mild autumn moonlight. Opposite rose the Palazzo Vecchio like some huge civic fortress, with the great bell-tower springing from its embattled verge like a mountain-pine from the edge of a cliff. At its base, in its projected shadow, gleamed certain dim sculptures which I wonderingly approached. One of the images, on the left of the palace door, was a magnificent colossus shining through the dusky air like some young god of Defiance. In a moment I recognized him as Michael Angelo's David. I turned with a certain relief from his sinister strength to a slender figure in bronze, stationed beneath the high, light loggia, which opposes the free and elegant span of its arches to the dead masonry of the palace; a figure supremely shapely and graceful; gentle, almost, in spite of his holding out with his light nervous arm the snaky head of the slaughtered Gorgon. His name is Perseus, and you may read his story, not in the Greek mythology, but in the memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini. Glancing from one of these fine fellows to the other, I probably uttered some irrepressible commonplace of praise, for, as if provoked by my voice, a man rose from the steps of the Loggia, where he had been sitting in the shadow, and addressed me in good English, — a small, slim personage, clad in a sort of black velvet tunic (as it seemed), and with a mass of auburn hair, which gleamed in the moonlight escaping from a little mediæval berretta. In a tone of the most insinuating deference, he asked